


here's the pride before the fall (oh, your eyes, they show it all)

by nefarians



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 17:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8219704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefarians/pseuds/nefarians
Summary: “Be careful with that one, love, he will do what it takes to survive.”The first time she hears those words from Angelica, she’s holding a letter from Alexander tightly to her chest, Peggy was looking on in delight, but the look in Angelica’s eyes is something she can’t quite place.





	

“Be careful with that one, love, he will do what it takes to survive.”

The first time she hears those words from Angelica, she’s holding a letter from Alexander tightly to her chest, Peggy was looking on in delight, but the look in Angelica’s eyes is something she can’t quite place.

“Of course,” she says in response, and nods dumbly. She tucks the words away someplace else to think about later, then she grabs Peggy’s arm and pulls her, with little resistance, into the sitting room adjacent to the hall. She delicately tears the envelope open and pulls the letter out. Peggy shuffles in closer to her on the couch while Angelica lingers in the doorway. 

***

“Just stay alive, that would be enough,” but even as the words leave her mouth she knows it’s never enough for her Alexander. He needs to not only survive, but thrive, do better and be better. He pushes himself relentlessly, so she resents when not long after he has finally come home to her, Washington orders for his return. 

“They’re asking me to lead!” he tells her, his coat already on, grabbing for his satchel. 

“Alexander, please,” she’s following him around the house, helplessly trying to still him, to get his attention. She knows him too well, he sees the focus in his eyes, the way his hands flick and move and how his eyes dart around their hallway looking for something.  
She grabs his arm.

“Isn’t this enough?” she holds his gaze, her hand still firmly grabbing his upper arm, her left hand on her belly.

He opens and closes his mouth. She doesn’t need to know what he means to say, she can see it in his face.

“Of course, my love, of course but…” he exhales.

She drops her hand from his arm, and drops her gaze. She stands in the hallway as Alexander remembers whatever it is he’d forgotten, and he moves quickly past her. Angelica’s words echo in her mind, but she pushes them away.  
Gently rubbing her belly, she moves slowly to the seat by the table in the hall, or maybe she moves in real-time she doesn’t know with Alexander, he always seems to be faster than her. She could never catch up.

***

Philip is born and it’s like it brings Alexander crashing back to earth. It slows him so completely that she doesn’t thinks she’s ever seen him so still, physically, mentally. He holds their son with such care that she laughs and assures him that he won’t break him. 

“Hold him close to you, Alexander,” she instructs gently.

She can scarcely believe Philip is real, his hands are so small, gently unfurling and clenching his tiny fists. She cries again, it’s like someone has broken her heart open but in the best way, to allow light to pour in, to fill her. 

“I’m never letting him go, oh God Philip, you’re so beautiful,” he smiles so hard it looks as though his face might break, and he laughs. A beautiful, joyous sound and Eliza joins in. She reaches up and places her hand over Alexander’s that he has resting on their son’s chest, feeling him breathe. Feeling the rise and fall of his chest, and her sister’s words are locked far away.

***

John’s death changes Alexander. It’s not about simply surviving anymore, he works himself to the bone. She hardly sees him anymore, locked away in his study early in the morning and late in the evening after work.  
He barely comes to bed, often falling asleep at his desk instead. One night, while Eliza lay in bed, listening to Alexander’s rummaging for something in his study, she remembers her sister’s words to her. Fighting for survival, constantly, was her Alexander. It had never been enough for him to be satisfied, to be happy and content with what they had. 

It was only weeks after Philip’s birth and she had barely seen him. It wasn’t enough for him, and something started to bloom in her chest, unease, deep deep sadness. Sadness for herself, that she was starting to realise his need for survival meant he was never satisfied, never still and this meant he would never be satisfied with her, with their life together.  
But more than that, sadness for her husband. No matter what she did she would never be able to smooth out that crease in his brow, or reassure him that at the end of the day she would be at home for him, and his son.  
It wasn’t enough for Alexander and she was starting to realise that now. He was always a little faster than her, but she had begun to catch up. 

***

Those words she tucked away came back to haunt her. He did what it took to survive, to secure his legacy but at the cost of what? Breaking her heart, tearing apart her family, destroying their trust. Seeing the look on Philip’s face shattered her again and again. 

What is the cost of survival? She asked herself this over and over as she read through the letters he sent her when they were engaged.  
The cost is, and always has been, whatever Alexander decided it to be.  
She had no stakes in the matter, she never did. It was Alexander who had the affair, who continued it for years and years, and it was Alexander who had decided for himself that he would absolve himself of one crime through confessing to another. 

“You published this for the world to see! And you didn’t tell me, why didn’t you tell me first?” she held his gaze, though it was him having trouble maintaining eye contact.

He opened and closed his mouth, not saying anything.

“Answer me, Alexander,” she said. She surprised herself that not a single tear had fallen, and that she kept her tone steady.

“I needed to fix it, I needed…” Alexander hesitated and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks, the anger threatening to draw tears. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and waited. 

“I needed to clear my name, I needed to make sure I hadn’t ruined everything,” he stated. 

Finally Eliza realised how selfish this man was she had married. He only considered himself, only considered his name, and his legacy.  
His name was hers too, and their children's.  
She couldn’t look at him as she moved past him in the hall and up to their bedroom. 

***

There should've been nothing worse, nothing after the Reynolds affair. No more costs to pay.  
But when her son, her firstborn, her Philip was lying there, cold and shaking and broken she felt the most violent anger within her.  
Obsessed with his legacy, Alexander has always been this way, obsessive and all encompassing like a hurricane. This time his obsession with his legacy had taken her son, her darling. She didn’t care about names, she didn’t care about anything when her son, was lying there barely able to breathe. She wants to fix it, she can’t, she was too slow.

She counted with him, a practice song she had taught him years ago on piano. 

“Cinq six sept huit neuf… Mom it hurts… Breathing…” Philip says to her.

“I know baby I-” 

“Don’t stop singing,” he tells her. 

She swallows the lump in her throat and feels her eyes begin to prickle. She can’t let Philip see her like this, she can’t let him worry about his mom, so she picks up from the next line. 

“Un deux trois quatre” she sings, gently.

“Un deux trois…” Philip’s voice trails off, and his chest doesn’t rise anymore. 

She screamed. 

She screamed for all the times Alexander didn't hear her, for everything she had lost, she screamed for her sisters (she had lost Peggy years ago yet that wound was still so fresh), she screamed for her husband for the pain he had caused her, and she screamed for her son. Her beautiful boy with her eyes and his smile and his aunt's tenacity and his father's intellect and her kindness.

It was all the had left, all she could do was scream. She lay across her son's body, and Alexander touched her. He went to place his hand over her’s and she yanked herself away from him hard that she nearly fell backward. His touch brings nothing but death and ruin, and he had brought it to her son, to her boy. 

He dared to drag Philip into this. She knew her eldest was as headstrong as his father, and she loved him for it. But his father should know better, Alexander should have known better than to drag their son his battle over legacy and names. 

But she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t say any of this. Now she was the one who could barely breathe, so she held her son’s hand and stroked across his knuckles with her thumb. Back and forth, back and forth. She could see Alexander in the corner of her eye with his hand splayed across their son’s chest, as if he was waiting for it to rise. It didn’t. 

She brings Philip’s hand up to her face, nuzzling her cheeks on his knuckles. 

“It doesn’t hurt anymore baby, not anymore,” she says quietly, placing a kiss on his hand before laying it back down next to him. She doesn’t stop the tears anymore, she lets them flow freely as she tangles her hands in the hem of her son’s shirt.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from No One's Here to Sleep by Naughty Boy feat. Bastille
> 
> guess what
> 
> it's 2.20am which means it's obviously time for me to write out a fic and not draft it 
> 
> any errors, please feel free to let me know but donut feel obligated to fix my shit  
> you know it is the way it is 
> 
> basically got this idea in the shower it was gonna be all the times that alex had fucked eliza over for his """legacy""" or whatever
> 
> i swear one of these days ill finish off at least one of my alex/laurens fics but for now i just want to hang with my girl eliza


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